1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an aqueous ink used in transfer ink jet recording.
2. Description of the Related Art
As a printing system, is known a recording method in which an ink is ejected on an intermediate transfer member to which a reaction liquid has been applied by an ink jet recording method to form an intermediate image, and then the formed intermediate image is transferred to a recording medium to form a final image (transfer ink jet recording method). This method enables high image definition and speeding up of recording. In addition, the light fastness, water fastness and gas fastness of an image to be formed are improved by using a pigment ink.
On the other hand, when a pigment ink is used, it is known that ejection stability is improved by using a polymer having a hydroxyl group in at least a part of its structure as a dispersant (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-146128).
However, the present inventors have carried out a detailed investigation and found a problem that when a pigment ink containing, as a dispersant, such a polymer having a hydroxyl group in at least a part thereof as described above is used in a transfer recording method, deterioration of image quality may be caused in some cases due to transfer leftovers on an intermediate transfer member.